To Yuri's surprise, one of the silhouettes approached the bleeding girl. It was a boy who looked like a 12 years old human. But he could still tell that the boy was a Mazoku. Or at least, a half-Mazoku. Yes, he saw that the approaching silhouette belonged to the young Conrad.
"Then Conrad's companion must be his father, Dan Hiri Weller," Yuri mumbled as he looked at the taller figure. But that was just for a short while. He reverted his gaze to Conrad who approached the girl who was now unconscious and lying on the ground, probably because of her wounds.
All Yuri could do was watch the next events unfold in front of him in a blur. Before he knew it, he was already watching Conrad looking over the still unconscious but already treating the young girl with a worried expression.
"She'll be fine, son. Her wound isn't that bad," Dan Hiri said upon entering the tent.
But it looked like those words weren't enough to cease the young man's worries.
"I wonder how she got hurt like that. Someone must have been after her," Conrad muttered without removing his gaze from the girl.
"In any case, we might be able to know the truth about that once she wakes up. Of course, it's still up to her if she wanted to talk about that to us."
And so the father and son waited. But for Yuri, it also passed by in a blur that he didn't realize Conrad had waited for the girl to wake up for two hours before he too fell asleep beside her. It felt like a few moments for him. When she saw Conrad enter the tent, the boy smiled and almost immediately approached the silvery green-haired girl who was already conscious.
"Are you... the one who treated my wound?" the girl asked already silently. Conrad nodded. She looked down and muttered a 'thank you.'
"My father prepared breakfast for us. If you want, you can join us," Conrad said with a smile. It almost felt like he was excited, only trying to hide it.
If the girl was surprised or otherwise, Yuri couldn't tell. But he soon noticed a small smile carved on her face and nodded. "I'd like to."
As soon as she got up, she faced Conrad. "Is it okay... if I ask for your name? I'd like to know the name of the boy who took care of me this whole time."
Silence filled the air for a few moments but it wasn't tense. Conrad smiled once again. This time, he held out his hand to the girl before speaking. "Conrad Weller."
It didn't take long for her to take it and soon after, they shook hands along with exchanging smiles.
"Lyall Corliss Amrein. It's nice to meet you, Conrad," the girl introduced with a sweet smile on her face.
But as soon as the introduction was over, that was when a bright light surrounded the scenery and all Yuri could do was cover his eyes with his arms. As soon as he felt that it faded, he opened his eyes. He found himself in the treasure room once more holding the demon mirror.
'Lyall Corliss Amrein...' "What a beautiful name..." But then, he asked himself. How come he only saw that past until the part where Conrad and the girl Lyall introduced themselves to each other? And then he remembered that he ordered the demon mirror to take his soul to the past when Conrad met the Beast Knight he mentioned to them yesterday.
That was when it came to him. That girl, Lyall, was the Beast Knight from Conrad's past. Then the injury he saw from Lyall at that time must have been from when she was dealing with her battle.
And now that he got the answer, though it surely wasn't enough to fill his curiosity, he returned the demon mirror from where he took it.
For now, there was still something that he needed to do.
xxxxxx
"You're late, Shibuya," were the words that immediately greeted Yuri as he entered the library where he and Murata agreed to read the books his friend got out from Shinou Temple.
Well, he truly hoped that those books would help them analyze the movement path of the island where the Kingdom of Esovia lies.
To his surprise, though, he found not only Murata and Shori there but also the three brothers, Anissina, Lady Cheri, Yozak, and Günter.
"Do we need this many people to analyze the documents, Murata?" Not that he was complaining, but there seemed to be so many people to do this particular task.
Murata shrugged and shook his head. "All of them had taken interest in doing this ever since the topic about the Beast Knights was brought up yesterday. I can't blame them, though, since it was an interesting myth to the Mazoku who knew them."
"Even Yozak is here. Aren't you supposed to be doing something somewhere else?"
"I just got back here, young master. Besides, it wasn't that bad if I participate in this. I heard that Conrad met this Beast Knight person before I met him. I've also heard various things about these people. But just like most of us, I also thought of it as a myth and nothing more," Yozak initially stated with a grin before slowly becoming serious.
"What kind of things did you hear about them?"
"For one thing, the Beast Knights were connected to their Beast Spirits once they've made a pact with these entities. The Knights also ventured into the human lands once in a while. Yet no one could ever realize that they were Mazoku, especially as Beast Knights. But the one truly interesting thing, though, was that each of the chosen Knight was descendants of the six original Beast Knights and inherited the memories of their ancestors, remembering it alongside their memories as if it was their own," Yozak added that truly got the young king's interest.
"Really?"
"I've heard about it before. It's called inherited memories. Those are memories passed down from one selected descendant of that generation to another and allow them to remember those memories—feelings, experiences, and knowledge—as if it was their own. It's said that only the Esovian Mazoku who contained inherited memories of their Beast Knight ancestors was one of the factors of choosing the next Beast Knight," Murata soon explained.
"You mean it's different from having memories of a past life just like you, Murata?"
The Daikenja nodded. "It's completely different since inherited memories are only limited to the descendants of the original person who had those memories. Memories of a reincarnated person such as myself came from different people, most of them weren't even related to each other." Murata soon faced Yozak. "Is there anything else that you heard about the Beast Knights that you might have possibly come across before?"
The said orange-haired spy thought about it for a moment or two before it hit him. "There was one that I came across a long time ago. I think it was after the war. There had been a legend told to a very few people about the number of Beast Spirits considered to be the most powerful. What most of us knew is that there were six powerful Beast Spirits that soon helped the formation of the Kingdom of Esovia. These Beast Spirits were the ones choosing the warriors whom they deemed qualified to become Beast Knights to protect the kingdom. But there was one who also mentioned about a seventh Beast Spirit."
Now Yuri and the others frowned at that. "A seventh Beast Spirit?"
"This is where it gets intriguing and really interesting at the same time. This mysterious seventh Beast Spirit... is said to be something that obeys and only allows its powers to be controlled and used by the Maoh."
Seriously, that was something that not even the Daikenja had even heard before. It all came as a surprise to all of them.